Sauron's Hroa and the Missing Finger

[Galin]

As for Sauron taking longer to rebuild his body in the Third Age...

' ... It was thus that Sauron appeared in this shape. It is mythologically supposed that when this shape was 'real', that is a physical actuality in the physical world and not a vision transferred from mind to mind, it took some time to build up. It was then destructible like other physical organisms. But that of course did not destroy the spirit, nor dismiss it from the world to which it was bound until the end. After the battle with Gilgalad and Elendil, Sauron took a long while to re-build, longer than he had done after the Downfall of Númenor (I suppose because each building-up used up some of the inherent energy of the spirit, that might be called the 'will' or the effective link between the indestructible mind and being and the realization of its imagination). The impossibility of re-building after the destruction of the Ring, is sufficiently clear 'mythologically' in the present book.'

From one of Tolkien's letters... can't recall which one at the moment!

[Eruhen]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Apparently, while the Ring itself was still intact, Sauron was capable of being rebodied.

However, it took him a pretty long time to get his strength back, so that delay was probably due to his lacking physical possession of the One.

Gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up. For some reason, I always thought that he was just a spirit, barely capable of manifesting physically, partly due to the lack of the Ring, and partly due to the fact that so much of his power was going into functioning essentially as an overmind for his armies.